The Neon Rain: A Dave Robicheaux Novel

New York Times best-selling author James Lee Burke's Dave Robicheaux novels began with this first hard-hitting entry in the series. In The Neon Rain, Detective Robicheaux fishes a prostitute's corpse from a New Orleans bayou and finds that no one, not even the law, cares about a dead hooker.

The Lost Get-Back Boogie

Released from prison after two years for manslaughter, Iry heads to Montana for a fresh start on a ranch owned by a prison buddy's father. He also hopes to nail down a song he's been working on, unable to get quite right. But soon new troubles bring tragic consequences, and it will take a lot more than a soulful tune to ease the pain.

Two for Texas

This James Lee Burke novel, featuring Son Holland - the great-grandfather of Burke's Billy Bob Holland - as he flees a Louisiana prison camp with a Native American woman and a fellow prisoner in tow, is now available in audio.

The Jealous Kind

On its surface, life in Houston in the 1950s is as you'd expect: stoic fathers, restless teens, drive-in movies, and souped-up Cadillacs. But underneath lies a world shifting under high school junior Aaron Broussard's feet. There's a class war between the "haves" and the "have-nots" as well as a real war, Korea, happening on the other side of the world. It is against this backdrop that Aaron comes of age, trying to understand how first loves, friendship, violence, and power can alter what "traditional America" means for the people trying to find their way in a changing world.

To the Bright and Shining Sun

In this novel, Burke brings his brilliant feel for time and place to a stunning story of Appalachia in the early 1960s. Here Perry Woodson Hatfield James, a young man torn between family honor and the lure of seedy watering holes, must somehow survive the tempestuous journey from boyhood to manhood and escape the dark and atavistic heritage of the Cumberland Mountains.

White Doves at Morning

In a startling departure, James Lee Burke has written an epic story of love, hate and survival set against the tumultuous background of the Civil War and Reconstruction. At the center of the tale are James lee Burke's own ancestors, Robert Perry, who comes from the slave-owning family of wealth and privilege, and Willy Burke, born of Irish immigrants, a poor boy who is as irreverent as he is brave and decent. Despite personal and political conflicts, both men join the Confederate Army, determined not to back down.

Wayfaring Stranger

It is 1934 and the Depression is bearing down when 16-year-old Weldon Avery Holland happens upon infamous criminals Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow after one of their notorious armed robberies. A confrontation with the outlaws ends as Weldon puts a bullet through the rear window of Clyde’s stolen automobile. Ten years later, Second Lieutenant Weldon Holland and his sergeant, Hershel Pine, escape certain death in the Battle of the Bulge and encounter a beautiful young woman named Rosita Lowenstein hiding in a deserted extermination camp.

The Wrong Side of Goodbye: A Harry Bosch Novel, Book 21

Harry Bosch is California's newest private investigator. He doesn't advertise, he doesn't have an office, and he's picky about who he works for, but it doesn't matter. His chops from 30 years with the LAPD speak for themselves. Soon one of Southern California's biggest moguls comes calling. The reclusive billionaire has less than six months to live and a lifetime of regrets. He hires Bosch to find out whether he has an heir.

An Obvious Fact

In the midst of the largest motorcycle rally in the world, a young biker is run off the road and ends up in critical condition. When Sheriff Walt Longmire and his good friend, Henry Standing Bear, are called to Hulett, Wyoming - the nearest town to America's first national monument, Devils Tower - to investigate, things start getting complicated.

Escape Clause: A Virgil Flowers Novel, Book 9

The first storm comes from, of all places, the Minnesota zoo. Two large and very rare Amur tigers have vanished from their cage, and authorities are worried sick that they've been stolen for their body parts. Traditional Chinese medicine prizes those parts for home remedies, and people will do extreme things to get what they need. Some of them are a great deal more extreme than others - as Virgil is about to find out.

Night School: A Jack Reacher Novel, Book 21

It's 1996, and Reacher is still in the army. In the morning they give him a medal, and in the afternoon they send him back to school. That night he's off the grid. Out of sight, out of mind. Two other men are in the classroom - an FBI agent and a CIA analyst. Each is a first-rate operator, each is fresh off a big win, and each is wondering what the hell they are doing there. Then they find out: A jihadist sleeper cell in Hamburg, Germany, has received an unexpected visitor - a Saudi courier seeking safe haven while waiting to rendezvous with persons unknown.

Manitou Canyon: Cork O'Connor Mystery Series

Since the violent deaths of his wife, father, and best friend all occurred in previous Novembers, Cork O'Connor has always considered it to be the cruelest of months. Yet his daughter has chosen this dismal time of year in which to marry, and Cork is understandably uneasy. His concern comes to a head when a man camping in Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness goes missing. As the official search ends with no recovery in sight, Cork is asked by the man's family to stay on the case.

The Black Echo: Harry Bosch Series, Book 1

For LAPD homicide cop Harry Bosch - hero, maverick, nighthawk - the body in the drainpipe at Mulholland Dam is more than another anonymous statistic. This one is personal. The dead man, Billy Meadows, was a fellow Vietnam "tunnel rat" who fought side by side with him in a nightmare underground war that brought them to the depths of hell.

No Man's Land: John Puller Series

John Puller's mother disappeared nearly 30 years ago. Despite an intensive search and investigation, she was never seen again. But new allegations have come to light suggesting that Puller's father - now suffering from dementia and living in a VA hospital - may have murdered his wife. Puller is officially barred from working on the case and faces a potential court-martial if he disobeys the order, but he knows he can't sit this investigation out.

The Whistler

Lacy Stoltz is an investigator for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct. She is a lawyer, not a cop, and it is her job to respond to complaints dealing with judicial misconduct. After nine years with the board, she knows that most problems are caused by incompetence, not corruption. But a corruption case eventually crosses her desk. A previously disbarred lawyer is back in business with a new identity. He now goes by the name Greg Myers, and he claims to know of a Florida judge who has stolen more money than all other crooked judges combined.

Half of Paradise

In this intense, fascinating story, Burke follows the lives of three young Louisiana men, each of whom finds himself in desperate circumstances. There's Avery Broussard, the last survivor of a family of once-prosperous land owners, who has a weakness for alcohol; J.P. Winfield, a poor singer and guitar player who rises to fame as a country music star, only to be destroyed by drug addiction; and Toussaint Boudreaux, a black longshoreman who moonlights as a heavyweight boxer.

Razor Girl: A Novel

When Lane Coolman's car is bashed from behind on the road to the Florida Keys, what appears to be an ordinary accident is anything but (this is Hiaasen!). Behind the wheel of the other car is Merry Mansfield - the eponymous Razor Girl - and the crash scam is only the beginning of events that spiral crazily out of control while unleashing some of the wildest characters Hiaasen has ever set loose.

Buffalo Jump Blues

In the wake of Fourth of July fireworks in Montana's Madison Valley, Hyalite County sheriff Martha Ettinger and Deputy Sheriff Harold Little Feather investigate a horrific scene at the Palisades cliffs, where a herd of bison have fallen to their deaths. Victims of blind panic caused by the pyrotechnics, or a ritualistic hunting practice dating back thousands of years? The person who would know is beyond asking, an Indian man found dead among the bison, his leg pierced by an arrow.

Publisher's Summary

Detective Dave Robicheaux returns to center stage in an incendiary new novel by James Lee Burke. A gripping tale of racial violence, class warfare, and the sometimes cruel legacy of Southern history, Sunset Limited is a stunning achievement, confirming Burke's place as one of America's premier stylists as well as master storytellers.

The 40-year-old crucifixion of a prominent labor leader named Jack Flynn remains an unsolved atrocity that has never been forgotten in New Iberia, Louisiana. When Flynn's daughter, Megan, a photojournalist drawn to controversial subjects, returns to the site of her father's murder, it quickly becomes clear that her family's blood-stained past will not stay buried. Megan gives her old friend Dave Robicheaux a tip about a small-time criminal named Cool Breeze Broussard, scarcely suspecting that the seemingly innocuous case will lead Robicheaux and his partner into the midst of a deadly conspiracy.

Combining brilliant prose, crackling suspense, and an exquisite sense of character and place, Sunset Limited is a wrenching tale of historic violence and soiled redemption that reveals one of America's finest novelists at his masterful best.

Just finished listening to this--and loved it. However, I am totally confused that both of these actors are listed as narrators. It is Mark Hammer only. What gives? When I read the reviews of this series, I see that very few folks are either/or about these two--some really do NOT like Hammer's accents or pronunciations, so much so that it ruins the book for them. If they purchase this thinking that at some point Will Patton is going to be reading, they will be sorely misled. I hope this will get corrected.

I also hope that audible.com will release more of this series in unabridged form. I never fail to enjoy the stories or characters and Mr. Burke's inestimable prose--with only one misstep in narrators (Nick Sullivan)--which is a pretty good record, over all.

I love JLB, he is one of my favorite authors. But this one became tiresome for some reason. The characters lacked the typical depth given by the author, the plot seemed too familiar; just nothing new seemed to happen in this story. OH I wish it had been better.

Yep, I have liked Streak Robicheaux enough to read ten of his stories to date. Mark Hammer's an important reason. He's among the greatest voices to have worked in this audio media. And yeah, Dave Robicheaux's life and mind are still fascinating as he tries to focus the American South through his very liberal lens where all people of color are noble yet bruised by all white people of affluence who have both inherited and continue to stain their own souls. While there's complexity of plot and character there's no nuance in Burke's judgement of this deep- Louisiana culture. To Burke, there is no New South, except as an irony. Little surprise that Alec Baldwin's been casts as Robicheaux in movies.

But in 'Sunset Limited' I began to find what was an engaging eccentricity in Robicheaux's internal monologues to have grown into an oddness bordering upon a distracting contradiction. Dave is presented to us as a simple cop: man-of-the-people, back-country moralist with a deep bayou accent and deeper back-countrty mind-set.

So how does one account for the intellectualism of his analogies? For example I was startled to here one made in this novel between the characters around him and Sir Toby Belch from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night! I know that Robicheaux attended a blue collar college, and yet he brings the critical analysis of a professor of literature to bear upon his reactions to story points. Toby Belch?? And his inner vocabulary as he analyzes his dreams, presents his imaginings, and details histories is rich as a tenured faculty member's and simultaneously littered, even driven, with Jungian archetypes.

So many of these, well, homilies, are now plunked into the stories that I'm feeling like a guy asked to buy a mine that some seller's shot-up with a shotgun loaded with tiny gold shavings. They call that "salting" and sellers who do that get into trouble with the law.

I'll read the next in this series… and I can recommend that you buy this one… but I can't recommend it with the enthusiasm that I had for say, "In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead". But still, as a tribute to the late Mark Hammer, it's worth hearing.

James Lee Burke is far and away my favorite writer. His books are always entertaining and thought-provoking and his characters and settings are more real than those of any other author. This not my favorite of his books, but still excellent and better than a book by anyone else.

I generally love Burke's books, and the Dave Robicheaux character in particular. He's flawed, interesting, good cop, and completely likeable. I don't know if I can put my finger on it, but I thought this book was particularly confusing, hard to follow the various threads, and implausible in some areas. Difficult to keep the relationships between the characters straight. I was so disappointed in the narrator--there wasn't quite enough distinction (or any) in the voices of the characters. So I couldn't quite tell who was talking in various dialogues. It was just a struggle--I'm not sure I'll get another Robicheaux novel if it's narrated by Mark Hammer.

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

Reasonable. Eventually tied up all the loose strings.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Mark Hammer?

Absolutely. Hated the narration. I had to put the speed up to 1.25x Couldn't bear it. Every other Robicheaux novel I've listened to was narrated by Will Patton, and I thought it was great. So before I hired a cast, I'd probably go back to Patton. But a cast would most definitely be better than Hammer.

I got lost about half way through and never found my way back. I have read a bunch of JLB's stuff and 9 out of 10 times, they are superb. But two or three of them, I read and at the end, I feel like I need to see the cliffnotes to figure out what just happened. This is one of those. JLB is my favorite author but every so often, he'll slip a dud in there. This is a dud.

this is the worst reader I've ever heard. it's like listening to a story in 2nd grade. if you guys want to do mr Burke justice get tommy lee jones. he played robicheax in Electric Mist, and he had a good feel for it.

Have listened to many of writers novels. Enjoyed each until this one. Narrator is too slow. Third way through still found disjointed and confusing. Can't find a story. Wrong narrator. I'm quitting this and moving on.